The present disclosure relates to an information processor, information processing method and program and, more particularly, to an information processor, information processing method and program suitable for electronic devices making up a home network to notify information about installed ACR (Automatic Content Recognition) clients to each other.
We consider, for example, a case in which information relating to a TV (television) program being broadcast (e.g., cast, outline and preview of next installment) and that not relating thereto but useful to viewers (e.g., news, weather forecast and traffic information) is displayed on the screen for the viewers of the TV (television) program (hereinafter simply referred to as the program).
In order to accomplish this, it is only necessary to transmit, to TV receivers and other devices, a command used to acquire a dedicated application program (hereinafter abbreviated as an application) and that used to activate the application in response to the progress of the program. In fact, this has already been made available in Japan and Europe by transmitting the commands and applications using a data broadcasting band in the TV broadcasting signal (refer, for example, to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-50237).
In the United States, on the other hand, no data broadcasting band is set aside in the TV broadcasting signal, with no alternative methodology established. As a result, the execution of an application in response to the progress of a program has yet to become a reality.
It should be noted that there are more households viewing programs through CATV and IPTV than those doing so by directly receiving TV broadcasting waves with their TV receivers in the United States. In CATV and IPTV, only video and audio signals of the program may be extracted from the TV broadcasting signal for delivery. Therefore, even if a data broadcasting band is set aside in the TV broadcasting signal in the United States, there is no guarantee that the data broadcasting signal including data relating to the application will be carried to the receivers.
Further, there is a recent need to execute an application in response to the progress of not only a program being broadcast but also that of a recorded program, a video reproduced from a package media such as DVD or BD, and a moving image and music downloaded from the Internet (these will be hereinafter referred to as content) during viewing.
In order to meet this need, it is necessary to identify content being viewed. A technique called ACR (Automatic Content Recognition) service is available as a possible approach to doing so (refer, for example, to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2012-168801).
ACR service is implemented by an ACR client and ACR server. The ACR client installed in a content reproduction device such as TV receiver extracts signature data (e.g., watermark and fingerprint) from viewed content, notifying the ACR server of the signature data and requesting it to identify the content. The ACR server compares the notified signature data against the signature data of content registered in advance in a database, identifying the content viewed on the content reproduction device. Further, the ACR server sends, to the ACR client, meta data relating to the identified content and the application to be executed (hereinafter referred to as the linked application) as an ACR response.
Then, the content reproduction device installed with the ACR client that has received this response acquires a linked application from a given server and executes the application.